I was in a serious tizzy yesterday. I yelled, I stomped my feet, I fully acted like a two year old. And why? All because of this:

Let me back up and tell you what happened. Yesterday morning, after I dropped off my kiddo at preschool, I was all set to start quilting my secret quilt, and I thought to myself, oh I should clean out my machine before I get started. I diligently took apart my bobbin casing to clean out the machine, using this little eyeshadow brush I've used over the last year. Yes, it's a makeup brush. I used it because it fit into all the nooks and crannies nicely, and it worked wonderfully...until yesterday.

The brush broke in half, and the top half of the brush fell into the black abyss inside my machine. I dug out my tweezers and tried to pry it out, to no avail. I busted out my vacuum and tried to vacuum it up, with no luck. Next, I took my machine to my sewing machine dealer, and spent over 30 minutes with their special teeny tiny tweezers, and still couldn't grab the brush, no matter how hard I tried. They told me I could leave the machine for the repairman, but that he would charge me $80 to open up the machine. My husband had a conniption and swore he could fix it.

And fix it, he did. It may have taken a tense 45 minutes, in which I paced and cursed myself for causing all this trouble in the first place, but my husband saved the day and pried that evil thing out of my machine.

The moral of the story? Never clean a sewing machine with a makeup brush. From now on, I will strictly use the vacuum to clean out my machine. Now on with the sewing!

39 comments:

I also have the brush that came with the machine, but I can't imagine where I could drop it in my machine! Sounds like quite a hole your brush fell into. I would have been having a fit too. I hate when my 'free' time plan goes out the window. Glad you got it out!!

I totally didn't get how you could have done this until I realised that its a teeny tiny top part of a brush! I thought that picture was of a big blusher brush, and I was like, wow, does she have Mary Poppins sewing machine?!

Good news to have got it out. Do read up on the vacuum idea, when I was looking at doing that some people thought it was a bad idea but I cannot remember why. I think you can find little one piece brushes about (sewing store, hardware store) for a little price.

OMG! John saves the day! That is crazy that the brush broke off in there. My machine came with a little cleaning brush, but it's just plastic, it couldn't be any stronger than a make-up brush. Glad it ended well!

Ugh! My machine, is a newer Pfaff. Viking and Singers are all the same now. It seriously irritates me how I can't get inside the machine... And yes, the repair bill to take it all apart is absolutely insane! Glad you husband was able to take it apart. That brush that comes with mine is a total joke. Mine is shedding its bristles each time I clean, which is horrible. I use a small paint brush, or a q-tip, but I'll have to make sure it's secure, after reading your post :-O.

Hee hee hee. Sorry, but I know how you feel. I caught my 1-year-old shoving pins into the top of my machine. I had to pull it apart, use tweezers and magnets, and finally had to turn the machine upside down and twist and turn and perform sewing acrobatics to get the last one out. Oh, the adventures!!! Glad you got it out.

Thank goodness your husband was able to retrieve it. My Pfaff came with a brush but like Becky it started falling apart after a couple of weeks and left bristles inside the machine. When I took ithe machine in for it's service, the repairman suggested that a toothbrush was the best implement to clean it. It doesn't get into all the tiny spots but if I clean the machine regularly it's great.

I dropped a brush into the "black abyss" recently too. I turned the machine upside down, shook it around for a bit and the thing fell out. I'm sure a sewing machine repair person would NOT suggest that method :).

Poor you! I can feel your hissy fit and totally understand. I have created many sewing machine crises and the frustration when you cannot fix it yourself is insane! I don't know why dealers don't allow us access to our machines anymore. Is it a conspiracy? It certainly lets the machine fixers charge a lot of money. Mine charges $95 for cleaning alone! I'm glad your hubby could fix it.

Isn't it a shame that we have to learn the hard way? Sorry for your troubled day, but I'm sure we are all thankful that you had that experience, blogged about it, and now all of us out here are much the wiser for it!

haha that's such a great story... especially since it ended well! I once had to take the casing off of my old machine because a friend of mine (a newbie sewer) dropped the needle when trying to replace it... impossible!

If you vacuum, put something like an old pantyhose over the end. So if there is any loose screws etc they don't get sucked up! I use the brush that came with the machine and sometimes a large duck feather than can get into little places.

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